Rune Hunting via Hammerdin w/ Enigma Just so you know I'm new to these forums though I've been reading them for a few months (I finally decided to join). I have a level 90 Hammerdin on USWest Ladder (Softcore) and he's ok with a 24 mara's, dusk enigma, spider,30 hoto. etc. but no sojs/gc's (290 mf with charms) Anyways, to the point. I want to hunt for runes, the high end ones (mal+). I know that the Countess drops runes everytime she dies, but I've heard from my friends that Travincal and Pindle are good places to find runes. Are these places viable? Is rune hunting even viable? Lol. I'm hoping to employ my Hammerdin to rune hunting, so I was wondering if you people could give me suggestions as how to go about rune hunting with a Hammerdin. If at all. Any and all responses are welcome. No really. Any and all. -Leo
Finding runes its all about luck! Especially highrunes! Your chances of getting runes up Gul is by doing hellforge rushes! The chances of getting runes up to Gul is 1/11. Other runes you might find by just playing the game! If u have a hammerdin i would suggest playing in act 5! Doing baal runs is also an option! GOOD LUCK! You will need it... /Dec
Rune hunting is sort of viable...It's not like MF'ing where you can increase your chances a lot, runes have a very crappy chance of dropping, and this can not be increased. However there are certain areas that are better than others. Countess is very good for runes because she drops one almost every time, however she only has good odds for dropping up to Ist. She can drop up to Lo but the chances aren't greater than with other monsters, so unless you're specifically looking for Ist or lower then Countess isn't the place. The Travincal area is a very good place (especially Lower Kurast), mostly because there are lots of chests, baskets, logs, corpses, etc. If you play in a game with lots of players you can just go around popping baskets and chests(Vigor would be very nice!). Otherwise just play in areas with lots of monsters, preferrably some that are also easy to kill. The Hammerdin should be good for this since he does massive damage and doesn't have to worry about immunities. As Decebal says it's all about luck!
Hunting for high runes is pointless, their chance to drop is so low that u'd win a lottery before u find a high rune. Your best bet is to hunt for good socketables, cube baal gc's (a good cubed skiller gc can be sold for an ungodly amount of high runes). Just to give u an idea, in 4 years of playing Ive yet to find a rune over Vex.
Wow, thanks guys! You have given me some good information, and I will take it all into consideration. I think that the socketables/baal gc's idea is really good, as well as the popping chests/baskets in act3. Thanks everyone. Any more information regarding rune hunting will continue to be helpful. Thanks again in advance. -Leo (ps-how do i get a signature?)
Runes drop a lot more frequently in 8-player games. Agreed on socketables. You'll have much better luck finding a decent socketable to trade for high runes than finding the runes themselves. People with all the runes don't want to have to search for superior dusk shrouds with exactly 3 sockets and will usually trade nice for rare finds like that. Just check out the trade guides but also look at the new rune words to see what people are probably looking for. I was an idiot and sold a sacred targe with 32 resist all on it a few months back because I was getting frustrated with trying to find someone who wanted it. I later saw someone trade a similar shield for a couple highs when the RWs came into play.
Thanks for the 8-player game info pherdnut. I'll keep that in mind (maybe leech off of the number of people in baal games lol). If anyone has an idea of what to keep my eye out for (which gc's and socketables), that would be really helpful and greatly appreciated! If you people have any more idea/ comment on runehunting or the like, keep it coming. All advice is helpful and will be considered. Thanks in advance and for the help provided so far. -Leo (ps how do i get a signature?)
Monsters with higher than average (but still pretty bad) chances of dropping good runes are Summoner, Haephesto, Izual and Nihlathak. Act 5 sparkly chests on p8 is also a source with better than average odds.
First question answered first. There is no real "good " place to rune hunt. Trav is a good place as is falyer jungle , the little soul killers ( travel in packs of about 100 ) have slightly best odds of high runes. ive found 3 high runes so far this season 2 BERs , 1 JAH 1st BER was from a pack of said soul killers porting on my way to world stone 3. 2nd BER was from Duriel doing a hell rush. JAH was from a random witch clearing throne before a baal run. PS dont try running Pindle with a hammerdin the close quarters will just get you killed, but you play sc so I guess thats not a real deterant As for getting a signature become a PAL
Here's the bottomline, higher runes are so rare that by the time you've found a Vex running Travs/Countess or any other place, you probably could get 3 HRs worth of stuff from just MFing. NOT worth it, at all. Now if you do still want to do it, then take off the MF gears, you don't need them at all, as there is no increase in chances. Concentrate on damage/speed, if you are running Travs, make sure you have max fire resist and some absorb, and be careful of corpse explosions. I have also read somewhere that among regular monsters, the highest rune droppers are the "ghost" type of monsters- Act 4 the Doom Casters, Storm Casters, Act 1 Ghost, Wraith, etc. One last thing, Hephisto (sp? the guy in hellforge) is a very very good rune dropper, I believe he has better chances for some of the high runes than Travs.
Grand Charms: Popular plain skillers such as Paladin Combat, Sorc Cold & Fire, etc. Popular skillers with 2nd mods e.g. Combat skiller with 40 life / 12 FHR Perfect gheeds fortune Socketables: Look at the popular runewords e.g. Elite Armor with 15% Enhanced Defense and 3 OS for enigma, grand matron bow with +3 skills and 4OS, etc For socketables it is quite easy to join baal games and keep your eyes peeled on the drops from the minions. You get exp and items It might actually be a good idea for someone with more knowledge to make a desirable socketables guide (any takers?)
In my time playing LOD i have only ever found 3 runes i'm proud off : vex, ist and ohm hehe. Strangely this ladder season my bone/summon mf necro found ohm from pindle and ist from eldritch while mf barb found vex from a chest behind memp back in .09 I agree that %mf doesn't come into play when rune-hunting and killing speed does Strangely though most times its sheer luck while magic finding and a nice rune pops up hehe. Also think i've found mal and um kicking those urns at Ancients Tunnels (Act 2 Lost City, pink trap door) and those zombies drop ko-lem when i mass CE them on the way
dont waste your time in finding runes. a hell booster maybe. a rune hunter no. The highest rune ive ever found (non forge) is ist, and i've played d2 for 3 years. trading from worse items to better ones is 10 times faster than finding runes yourself. but if you still decide to make one, good luck, and pm me if you ever find some nice rune
